Chapter Text
"Who are they?" I asked the girl from my Spanish class, whose name I'd forgotten.
As she looked up to see who I meant — though already knowing, probably, from my tone — suddenly he looked at her, the thinner one, the boyish one, the youngest, perhaps. He looked at my neighbor for just a fraction of a second, and then his dark eyes flickered to mine.
He looked away quickly, more quickly than I could, though in a flush of embarrassment I dropped my eyes at once. In that brief flash of a glance, his face held nothing of interest — it was as if she had called his name, and he'd looked up in involuntary response, already having decided not to answer.
My neighbor giggled in embarrassment, looking at the table like I did.
"That's Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen; they all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife." She said this under her breath.
I glanced sideways at the beautiful boy, who was looking at his tray now, picking a bagel to pieces with long, pale fingers. His mouth was moving very quickly, his perfect lips barely opening. The other three still looked away, and yet I felt he was speaking quietly to them.
Strange, unpopular names, I thought. The kinds of names grandparents had. But maybe that was in vogue here — small town names? I finally remembered that my neighbor was called Jessica, a perfectly common name. There were two girls named Jessica in my History class back home.
"They are… very nice-looking." I struggled with the conspicuous understatement.
"Yes!" Jessica agreed with another giggle. "They're all together though — Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they live together." Her voice held all the shock and condemnation of the small town, I thought critically. But, if I was being honest, I had to admit that even in Phoenix, it would cause gossip.
"Which ones are the Cullens?" I asked.
"They don't look related…"
"Oh, they're not. Dr. Cullen is really young, in his twenties or early thirties. They're all adopted. The Hales are brother and sister, twins — the blondes — and they're foster children."
"They look a little old for foster children."
"They are now, Jasper and Rosalie are both eighteen, but they've been with Mrs. Cullen since they were eight. She's their aunt or something like that."
"That's really kind of nice — for them to take care of all those kids like that, when they're so young and everything."
"I guess so," Jessica admitted reluctantly, and I got the impression that she didn't like the doctor and his wife for some reason. With the glances she was throwing at their adopted children, I would presume the reason was jealousy.
"I think that Mrs. Cullen can't have any kids, though," she added, as if that lessened their kindness. Throughout all this conversation, my eyes flickered again and again to the table where the strange family sat. They continued to look at the walls and not eat.
"Have they always lived in Forks?" I asked. Surely I would have noticed them on one of my summers here.
"No," she said in a voice that implied it should be obvious, even to a new arrival like me.
"They just moved down two years ago from somewhere in Alaska." I felt a surge of pity, and relief. Pity because, as beautiful as they were, they were outsiders, clearly not accepted. Relief that I wasn't the only newcomer here, and certainly not the most interesting by any standard.
As I examined them, the youngest, one of the Cullens, looked up and met my gaze, this time with evident curiosity in his expression. As I looked swiftly away, it seemed to me that his glance held some kind of unmet expectation.
"Which one is the boy with the reddish brown hair?" I asked. I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, and he was still staring at me, but not gawking like the other students had today — he had a slightly frustrated expression. I looked down again.
"That's Edward. He's gorgeous, of course, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him." She sniffed, a clear case of sour grapes. I wondered when he'd turned her down.
I bit my lip to hide my smile. Then I glanced at him again. His face was turned away, but I thought his cheek appeared lifted, as if he were smiling, too.
After a few more minutes, the four of them left the table together. They all were noticeably graceful — even the big, brawny one. It was unsettling to watch. The one named Edward didn't look at me again.
I sat at the table with Jessica and her friends longer than I would have if I'd been sitting alone. I was anxious not to be late for class on my first day. One of my new acquaintances, who considerately reminded me that her name was Angela, had Biology II with me the next hour. We walked to class together in silence. She was shy, too.
When we entered the classroom, Angela went to sit at a black-topped lab table exactly like the ones I was used to. She already had a neighbor. In fact, all the tables were filled but one. Next to the center aisle, I recognized Edward Cullen by his unusual hair, sitting next to that single open seat.
As I walked down the aisle to introduce myself to the teacher and get my slip signed, I was watching him surreptitiously. Just as I passed, he suddenly went rigid in his seat. He stared at me again, meeting my eyes with the strangest expression on his face — it was hostile, furious. I looked away quickly, shocked, going red again. I stumbled over a book in the walkway and had to catch myself on the edge of a table. The girl sitting there giggled.
I'd noticed that his eyes were black — coal black.
Mr. Banner signed my slip and handed me a book with no nonsense about introductions. I could tell we were going to get along. Of course, he had no choice but to send me to the one open seat in the middle of the room. I kept my eyes down as I went to sit by him, bewildered by the antagonistic stare he'd given me.
I didn't look up as I set my book on the table and took my seat, but I saw his posture change from the corner of my eye. He was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of his chair and averting his face like he smelled something bad. Inconspicuously, I sniffed my hair. It smelled like strawberries, the scent of my favorite shampoo. It seemed an innocent enough odor. I let my hair fall over my right shoulder, making a dark curtain between us, and tried to pay attention to the teacher.
Unfortunately the lecture was on cellular anatomy, something I'd already studied. I took notes carefully anyway, always looking down. I couldn't stop myself from peeking occasionally through the screen of my hair at the strange boy next to me. During the whole class, he never relaxed his stiff position on the edge of his chair, sitting as far from me as possible. I could see his hand on his left leg was clenched into a fist, tendons standing out under his pale skin. This, too, he never relaxed. He had the long sleeves of his white shirt pushed up to his elbows, and his forearm was surprisingly hard and muscular beneath his light skin. He wasn't nearly as slight as he'd looked next to his burly brother.
The class seemed to drag on longer than the others. Was it because the day was finally coming to a close, or because I was waiting for his tight fist to loosen? It never did; he continued to sit so still it looked like he wasn't breathing. What was wrong with him? Was this his normal behavior? I questioned my judgment on Jessica's bitterness at lunch today. Maybe she was not as resentful as I'd thought.
It couldn't have anything to do with me. He didn't know me from Eve. I peeked up at him one more time, and regretted it. He was glaring down at me again, his black eyes full of revulsion. As I flinched away from him, shrinking against my chair, the phrase if looks could kill suddenly ran through my mind. At that moment, the bell rang loudly, making me jump, and Edward Cullen was out of his seat. Fluidly he rose — he was much taller than I'd thought — his back to me, and he was out the door before anyone else was out of their seat.
EPOV
I walked as quickly as possible, well ass quickly as was appropriate and “normal”, out of the aged building into the dank parking lot. I couldn’t even bring myself to care about controlling anything beyond the pace of my legs. My face must’ve been like something out of a gothic novel, as pained and dark as I felt.
“Whoa, what’s up with Cullen today?”
“-- peeling out of here like a bat outta--”
“ Edward, Edward, where are you going?! You haven’t made a decision, I need you to make a dec--”
“Dude, what’s his problem?”
“Oh, no, Cullen’s heading out. Bet he’s gonna skip cla--”
“Fucking bitch. I oughta--”
“She’s so stupid--”
“God, he’s so hot and sex--”
“Last night was amazing, I wish she could visit more --”
“All I have to do is hide my bag of clothes in the bushes, and then when I leave--”
“A decision, Edward! MAKE A DECISION.”
“I just hope she doesn’t look in the closet, if she looks in there I’m dea--”
“What’s happening, bro?”
“Ohmygod, I hope she didn’t smell the vomi--”
“Dude, last night was so craz--”
“Where are you going Edward?”
“Away,” the word was a guttural growl from my lips, low and barely concealed from the hearing heights of the miserable humans surrounding me. All I could think about, all I could focus on was pumping my limbs in the opposite direction of that sweet, dark, delicious scent. Everything inside screamed at me to go back, to go to the tempting siren who lured me to my ruin; to the shipwreck of my humanity. It would so easy, and so, so sweet. The dark, heavenly taste would coat my tongue and stroke silkily down my throat like the most heated lover's caress-- Stop. Enough.
I just needed to get away. Away, away, away. Then I could create a plan. A plan to take me far from temptation.
And I almost made it. Almost.
“NO! EDWARD!”
_____________________________________________________________________
BPOV
I was walking out of the school, blindly trying to stuff some papers into my bag when I tripped over a bump in the sidewalk. Falling to my knees, I instinctively thrust out my arms to try to catch myself. I winced ass the damp sidewalk dug into my tender palms and scraped.
I had two seconds to register the burning pain in my hands before something stone hard slammed into my side.
My bones jarred and suddenly I was moving, no, I was flying. I was flying, and yet weighed down with a steel band around my waist. My head jerked and bobbled uncomfortably on the thin stem of my neck and I frantically kicked my feet. Panic flooded my system, closely followed by a healthy dose of fear. What was happening? I tried to concentrate, tried to open my eyes and see where I was being taken, but when I tried I couldn’t make sense of anything. It was all a blur, and I began to feel nauseous like one does when on a roller coaster. The cool wind bit into my clothes with such ferocity, I feared they may tear off. Tears leaked from eyes, no doubt from the lashing my entire face was receiving.
Branches snapped, and suddenly twigs were scratching my arms, my face. These lacerations began to itch and pulse and throb.
Then everything all of a sudden came to a halt.
I was thrown on the ground. Flailing and squirming, but my arms and legs were pinned by a crushing weight. My face was shoved into wet grass and leaves rather unceremoniously. My eyes clamped shut; really, they had been shut since I saw the whirling floor beneath me as whatever snatched me fled the school. White noise filled my ears and if I whimpered, I was unaware. I tried to breathe and kept choking on debris and dirt. The grip on my arms tightened to the point I thought I could feel my bones bending. In the back of my mind, I reminded myself that bones did not bend, they broke.
I tried to listen to my attacker, the thing that had me pinned to the earth like a bug pinned within a picture frame. All I heard was heavy breathing and the occasional hiss. What the hell? White hot agony raced up from the ankle of my left foot up the back of my leg. My mouth opened and again I choked, this time on a broken inhale for a would-be scream. No, no, no, no…
Not happening, not happening…
Charlie … Mom ....
FIGHT
I tried to lunge my body upwards, tried to buck whatever-it-was off me, but then there was a single pointed striked to my shoulder. I let out a garbled yell, trying desperately to get away from the thing clamped to my shoulder like a snake. It held on, and every time I jerked it tightened down until it felt as if a sharp blade was embedded deep in the bone of the joint. My head was shoved sideways, against the ground with such force it felt as if my head would be crushed like grape.
A sob escaped my lips, the swiftly rising tide of aching agony began to overwhelm my consciousness.
Fire began to race through my veins. It only made me struggle harder and I was vaguely aware of something else snapping. A crack, like the sound of two large bowling balls coming together, ricocheted across the air above me.I tried to listen again, to pay attention, but things were hazy, greying around the edges, and the flames consumed me.